I personally feel that if you don't use your own name, then it gives the appearance of hiding something. It also opens the door to doing something that you would never do when using your own name, if such a situation presents itself. Why tempt yourself?

Associating your work with your own name gives you more cred and professionalism. That's why I use my real name. I also ask the same of my writers with few exceptions.

Handles I got my handle "slimjim" back before i used computers on the CB radio. I used the handle slimjim100 after too many other slimjim's started to show up on the net in 1995. I use the handle to make sure only when i did something on the net it could be tracked back to me. i have been online so much and with Google i can track a lot of where content i have made is now. In this forum and a few other places you will see my real name "Brian Wilson" (which is very common). I am not hiding anything with my handle I just have a name that is too common like John Smith.

In a very limited way, handles protect privacy. They are most often not even related to hacking/cracking. Many people use handles for gaming and/or chat. Unless I'm doing something for my job or school, I see no reason to use a real name, even though it only provides minimal protection.

Yah it sounds awesome dude. Before you start using it, you might want to learn to hack first, that way you won’t get totally flamed. Any way, if one is engaged in any kind of hacking, ethical or otherwise, hiding you identity is imperative! I was wondering how many full time pentesters are on this forum? Any one out there that has made the mistake of letting everyone know that they hack is in for a lot of problems. I used to let everyone know, partly because I thought it made me look cool (my secret shame) and partly to help drum up business. It didn’t help on either of those! The big problem is when ever there is a problem or security breach, everyone thinks you had something to do with it. Sure you can try and explain that you are an Ethical Hacker, but most people only seem to hear “Hacker”. Hacker is a bad term to the public and people freak if they think you have the ability to get into there computers.

For instance, an old girlfriend of mine used to work in a place that stored a lot of sensitive information consisting of client’s bank accounts and other assets. One day their entire network crashed. Well they heard that her boyfriend was a hacker! Great! Another example, my CPA was dragging his feet in getting my tax returns together. I kept bugging him. One day he noticed that someone was trying to breach his firewall over and over. Guess who he thought was doing it? Jeeze, I can give story after story, even about family members that get a little paranoid about there computers if something suspicious occurs, LOL!

My advice is to only let clients that you are targeting know that you can hack. If anyone out side that group is curious as to what you do, use terms like security consultant, etc...

Last edited by Kev on Fri Mar 23, 2007 9:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Kev, thanks for the advice, I take that seriously. Where do you suggest I start in my hacking 'journey'? I cannot set up VMware now due to lack of funds for RAM, and I have a broadband connection. Can I get some help hacking my laptop that is set up to my wireless router? My desktop is connected to the router with a hard connection, and it is wireless. How can I hack that computer through mine? (or links to read are beneficial, I am on spring break)

Begin by downloading a few free scanners. Nmap, Super scan and Angry scanner. After that, play with Nessus. They are all free and are the first place to start. Dont rush in trying to learn them. Specially Nmap. The important thng to remember is hacking is a slow, careful process. It takes a patient person. The best movie description of it is the movie War Games. In it you will see the main character use social engineering to get passwords to the school server. He runs a boring war dialing program for hours to find open modems. He spends hours and days going to the library researching the inventor of the computer he wants to hack in hopes of discovering the password he used. Could that password be the name of someone in his family or a birth date? The movie Hackers on the other was crap. I wish it was that exciting, lol! When that movie first came out and advertised on the internet, it was the first "official" defacement of a website by real hackers. Do you know what they wrote on the website? They simply changed the title form "Hackers" to "NOT hackers"! Ha Ha

Last edited by Kev on Sat Mar 24, 2007 9:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

OK, I am checking out those scanners. Thanks for the tips. I know that hacking takes patience, and I have it when I have a problem to work on, not when I don't have anything to do if you get my meaning...